Fabricated newspaper front page about gold control measures spreads in India
- Published on May 18, 2026 at 11:21
- Updated on May 18, 2026 at 11:39
- 3 min read
- By Sachin BAGHEL, AFP India
India's opposition politicians criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to refrain from buying gold for a year as the country's foreign exchange reserves were impacted by the Middle East war, prompting false social media posts sharing a fabricated news clipping of former leader Indira Gandhi making a similar appeal in 1967. The Hindu newspaper said the image was not an authentic page from its publication, while the genuine June 6, 1967 issue shows a different front page.
The purported image of Indian newspaper The Hindu's June 6, 1967 front page with a headline reading "Don't buy gold, Indira tells people; appeals for 'national discipline'", was shared in an X post on May 13, 2026.
"Indira Gandhi had also appealed to the people not to buy gold in the interest of the country", reads the Hindi-language caption.
Gandhi was a leader of India's current opposition Congress party and prime minister from 1966 to 1977, and served again from 1980 until her assassination in 1984 (archived link).
The supposed front page circulated online on Facebook and X after Modi was criticised by opposition politicians for his call to Indians to refrain from buying gold to lessen the impact on the economy from the Middle East conflict that was triggered by joint US-Israel attacks on Iran (archived links here and here).
Modi also suggested other measures such as reducing petrol and diesel consumption, using public transport, avoiding unnecessary foreign travel and working from home. He also urged farmers to reduce chemical fertiliser usage by 50 percent.
However, a keyword search on Google found the circulating front page is a fabrication.
The Hindu newspaper said the clipping had been digitally altered in a May 12, 2026 post on its official X account (archived link).
"We wish to clarify that this is not an authentic page from our archives," it said.
Two of the newspaper's political journalists also shared screenshots of the publication's actual printed front page on June 6, 1967, published alongside the fabricated image (archived links here and here).
The genuine front page was in fact mostly dedicated to covering the Arab-Israel war, also known as the Six-Day War, after which Israel occupied Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula (archived link).
The war ended with a United Nations-brokered ceasefire, and Israel eventually returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in 1982 in exchange for full recognition, while the Gaza strip was only returned to Palestinians in 2005.
The fabricated version has an erroneous slogan, reading "Indian National Newspaper", instead of the authentic "India's National Newspaper".
Moreover, the fake version had five columns of text, while the genuine front page is an eight-column broadsheet.
Gandhi's administration did enact strict control measures on gold, but the move came in 1968 (archived link).
Citizens were banned from holding gold bars and coins after India's weakened economy struggled after its war with Pakistan in 1965. The law was repealed in 1990 (archived link).
AFP has debunked other false claims stemming from the global energy crisis.
May 18, 2026 This article was updated to correct the spelling of "authentic" in the summary
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